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Why Washington Is Worried About Peru
If its preferred candidate Keiko Fujimori loses to Ollanta Humala, the US will be isolated against South America's left governments
In just a few days, on Sunday 5 June, an election will take place that will have a significant influence on the western hemisphere. At the moment, it is too close to call. Most of official Washington has been relatively quiet, but there is no doubt that the Obama administration has a big stake in the outcome of this poll.
The election is in Peru, where left populist and former military officer Ollanta Humala is facing off against Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of Peru's former authoritarian ruler Alberto Fujimori, who was president from 1990-2000. Alberto Fujimori is in jail, serving a 25-year sentence for multiple political murders, kidnapping and corruption. Keiko has made it clear that she represents him and his administration, and has been surrounded by his associates and former officials of his government.
Fujimori was found to have had "individual criminal responsibility" for the murders and kidnappings. But his government was responsible for many more widespread murders and human rights abuses, including the forced sterilisation of tens of thousands of women, mostly indigenous.
Between the two candidates, whom do you think Washington would prefer?
If you guessed Keiko Fujimori, you guessed right. I spoke Monday night with Gustavo Gorriti in Lima, an award-winning Peruvian investigative journalist who was one of the people that Alberto Fujimori was convicted of kidnapping. "The US embassy strongly opposes Humala's candidacy," he said. Harvard professor of government Steven Levitsky, who has written extensively on Peru and is currently visiting professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP), came to the same conclusion: "It's clear that the US embassy here sees Keiko as the least bad option," he told me from Lima on Tuesday.
Humala's opponents argue that Peru's democracy would be imperilled if he were elected, pointing to a military revolt that he led against Fujimori's authoritarian government. (He was later pardoned by the Peruvian Congress.) But his record is hardly comparable to the actual, proven crimes of Alberto Fujimori.
Humala is also accused of being an ally of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez. He has distanced himself from Chávez, unlike in his 2006 campaign for the presidency. But all of this is just a rightwing media stunt. Chávez has been demonised throughout the hemispheric media, and so rightwing media monopolies have used him as a bogeyman in numerous elections for years, with varying degrees of success. Of course, Venezuela is also irrelevant to the Peruvian election because almost all governments in South America are "allies of Chávez". This is especially true of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Uruguay, for example, all of whom have very close and collaborative relations with Venezuela.
As in many other elections in Latin America, rightwing domination of the media is key to successful scare tactics. "The majority of TV stations and newspapers have been actively working for Fujimori in this election," said Levitsky.
The thought of another Fujimori government is so frightening that a number of prominent conservative Peruvian politicians have decided to endorse Humala. Among these is the Nobel prize-winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who hates the Latin American left as much as anyone. Humala has also been endorsed by Alejandro Toledo, the former Peruvian president and contender in the first round of this election.
So why would Washington want Fujimori? The answer is quite simple: it's about Washington's waning influence and power in its former "backyard" of Latin America. In South America, there are now left-of-centre governments in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay. These governments have a common position on most hemispheric issues (and sometimes, other international issues, such as the Middle East), and it often differs from that of Washington.
For example, when the Honduran military overthrew the country's elected left-of-centre president, Manuel Zelaya, in 2009, and the Obama administration sought to legitimise the coup government through elections that other governments would not recognise, it was Washington's few rightwing allies that first broke ranks with the rest of South America.
Prior to last August, the only governments in South America that Washington could count as allies were Chile, Peru and Colombia. But Colombia under President Manuel Santos is no longer a reliable ally, and currently has very good co-operative relations with Venezuela. If Humala wins, there is little doubt that he will join the rest of South America on most issues of concern to Washington. The same cannot be said of Keiko Fujimori.
And that is why Washington is worried about this election.
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19 Comments so far
Show AllThus has it been ever since the U.S. abandoned a "good neighbor" policy toward Latin America for what amounts to that of the "playground bully." Whadda you mean, you don't think I should be running this playground? Listen to me, punk! You want reasons? Here's five good ones (my fist.)
Well if it worries Washington it must be good for the people of Peru and South America. America foreign policy has never had the best interests of any other country as a goal from its inception.
I hope and pray that Ollanta Humala wins. So I can laugh at Washington for there continued loss of allies in South America. But the U.S. Foreign policy is causing them to get what they deserve.
Hope to god that Humala wins. It may finally get some sense back into America.
America may stop trade and increase drug running but the South Americans have the power to slow them down.
Just move away from the greenback and America will fall to their knees.
Wait just a minute here....you mean the U.S. would actually back an authoritarian, totalitarian regime with a track record of murder and human rights abuses?? What!!
I am just....shocked...shocked, I say.
As in the Middle East, Far East, Oceania, Europe, mainland Asia, Latin America, and so on, the U.S. is incrementally becoming irrelevant and moot, diplomatically speaking......
The proverbial chickens are coming home to roost, after the cowboy-emulating, violence/addicted, braggart/bullies have had their little, ego-driven adventure, and have since lost any micro-shred of respect from the civilized world.....
Between covert-CIA plot-hatching, predatory financial schemes,
environmental rape, corporate-mentally ill-greed, geo-political subjugation,
virulent-cultural infection [McDonald's, Disneyland, etc.], troop/garrisons around the globe, weapons/manufacture/profiteering, military/orbiting spycraft, and harboring redundant-nuclear-anhilation missile-silos, nuclear weapons submarines, etc., etc..........
What's their problem?
....what have we done to attract terrorism?
EXCELLENT post, brant!
But hey, didn't you know? They hate us for our freedoms!
They certainly do. Our freedom to assassinate their presidents, bomb their cities and wreck their economies, that is.
It's not the chickens that have come home to roost, but the condors.
Don't want to rain on the parade, as most here would not wish on Peruvians the coming of another Fujimori.
But, this article does not tell us anything about Humala and what his presidency might mean. Not so dull to think that everyone is as uninformed as I, but perhaps Mr. Weisbrot could favor us with a follow-up report? Not to assume that what gets said and thought here makes a dime's worth of difference in Peru.
The sooner SA unites in opposition to Oceana, the better for mankind.
"But, this article does not tell us anything about Humala and what his presidency might mean. Not so dull to think that everyone is as uninformed as I, but perhaps Mr. Weisbrot could favor us with a follow-up report?"
That's right. Not everyone is not as uninformed as you are. Especially those who put the word "Humala" in the search bar and read about him. Why should Mr. Weisbrot favor you with a follow-up report if you are too lazy to research things for yourself?
Ah 'readbetweenthelines' shall I presume? :)
And Justaman is correct. This article told me nothing about Humala.
(Though, this article clearly makes him the better choice.)
The US values murderous dictators. What a surprise.
Good. I hope that Ollanta / Chávez create an Axis of Justice in Latin America.
FREE AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY
I'm glad that Weisbrot routinely brings information about South American issues to light, as otherwise we'd get nothing but the official propaganda line. I, too, think his insight on what a Humala administration might look like is called for. Is Humala the least evil option, or is there some genuine hint of promise for Peru?
My other concern is that the election is held freely and fairly, without the usual well-known US tendency to interfere (e.g., in Venezuela), and that Fujimori the younger fails to be elected. Still, I wouldn't look to Humala as the savoir as he's still a member of the elite class.
GOOD REPORTING WEISBROT
I visited Peru in earlier years when my Dad was a so-called "liberal" working
in concert with the "Alianza para Progresso" and the CIA. He was summarily
dismissed. At that young age (I was a college student) I did not comprehend
the more profound issues involved.
Reports from Latin America are so controlled by US interests as portrayed...
by the US, of course, that one doesn't know what to believe at all.
Thanks for your contribution.
email: peterloeb@yahoo.com
The leadership of the Latin-American continent, more or less, is rejecting US hegemony....
....which was sown in the soil of the Monroe Doctrine, I suppose....
That blueprint was the ''architecture for Imperialism'' which was internalized by Japan's, war-lord/society.
...that ''monster'', so to speak, victimized immense geographies of Asia, Oceania, and so on.........
......They naturally felt justified, following the American, functional prerogative, in aspiring to their own ''sacred omnipotence''.
The US, logically, should have anticipated the vast nightmare of a second, even more devastating, apocalyptic, world war....
That is, if one surveys the institutional injustice, malice, and fear planted by previous, US, hegemonic
''heads of state''.....
These men were no more leaders than roaches, or so many worms, slithering beneath their stones....
to be purged, and exposed to the masses, somehow, by subsequent historians and
truthseekers.........
You reap what you sow.....J.Christ....
Sterilizing Indian women only is a travesty.
Global human overpopulation is a time bomb.
Planned Parenthood
@brantcloyd: Great comment!
Thank you Mark W for writing this article which, as little info as there is about Humala, still tells the truth about the aspects of the Peruvian elections and the American involvement in it.
Humala is a nationalist that was brought up with ethical ideals and love for his country. We cannot say much about the future of Peru, but we can hope that good things will come from a president who seems to want change that will benefit the population as a whole.
At least Keiko wasn't elected, she would just work on realeasing his father from jail so they could rob the country of its dignity, the only thing we have left from Fujimori's presidency.
And, as a progressive leftist-leaning Peruvian, I am excited to see the progression Latin America will make in the world without so much American involvement.